No Premier League side has won the title just yet, reminds defender Chris Smalling of reigning champions Manchester United.

A number of challengers for this year's crown have already suffered blips… Manchester City, for instance, have already lost four times; Chelsea managed just four points from a possible nine in November, Liverpool have conceded six goals in their last two games and Manchester United lost twice in September.

While Arsenal were beaten by Aston Villa on the opening day of the season, they are yet to truly sustain an undesirable patch akin to the respective erring runs by their aforementioned rivals and so, Smalling implies, the Gunners may well be due a rough patch by the time the congested Christmas period is over and so, as a consequence, there may be another team who leapfrogs them into pole position.

'We are starting play in good spells in games but we need to finish teams off,' Smalling stated, as reported by The Mirror. He continued: 'We don't want to see Arsenal get too far ahead, but we can only focus on ourselves.

'Nobody has won the title yet. Arsenal have started well but give it another month and there could potentially be another team at the top. There are going to be so many more ups and downs.'

United are currently eighth in the division having collected 22 points from 13 match-days. They trail Arsenal by nine points.